Crisis Overview

Despite progress made on the political front, acute humanitarian needs persist in Somalia and require urgent attention to avert millions of vulnerable people from sliding back into crisis. After more than two decades of violence and political turmoil, Somalia is on a positive trajectory but insecurity remains a major challenge; further conflict, a poor harvest, or a drop in humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable, could easily plunge hundreds of thousands of people into renewed crisis.

A number of shocks experienced in 2015, among them flooding, drought, conflict, persistent protection challenges and disease outbreaks illustrate Somalia’s continued fragility. Continued displacement and returns of vulnerable Somalis from neighbouring countries have the potential to further exacerbate the situation. Vulnerability levels remain critical, due to continued insecurity and extremely low levels of socio-economic development — resulting in limited ability to absorb recurrent shocks. The Somali authorities supported by the international community are working hard to build on increasing stability to achieve real improvements in socio-economic indicators, in order to provide the Somali people with access to basic services and develop durable solutions to existing challenges such as displacement.

The number of people in need of assistance has increased from five million in September 2015 to over 6.2 million in February 2017 - more than half of the country’s population. This includes a drastic increase in the number of people in “crisis” and “emergency” from 1.1 million six months ago to a projected 3 million between February and June this year. The situation for children is especially grave. Some 363,000 acutely malnourished children are in need of critical nutrition support, including life-saving treatment for more than 71,000 severely malnourished children. Some 1.9 million people may die of preventable diseases due to lack of access to primary health care services. The maternal mortality ratio for Somalia is among the highest in the world at 732 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Asylum seekers and returnees fleeing the Yemen crisis also continue to arrive in Somalia with almost 30,000 people received so far and more are expected in 2016, as well as Somali returnees from Kenya. This has significantly exacerbated the humanitarian situation, along with the El Niño phenomenon that intensified extensive flooding and severe drought, affecting an estimated 145,000 people.